Every day of the year, dedicated members of the Alton Fire and Ambulance, Orange City Fire, and Orange City Area Health System Ambulance teams — along with local law enforcement — have their day or night interrupted with the tones or vibrations of a pager. They drop what they are doing and within minutes are on their way to using their skills and training to potentially save your life. No incident is the same. When it comes to car accidents, each vehicle is damaged differently, each patient has different injuries, each location brings a different setting, and each event has its own environmental challenges.
To address all these differences, team members need to know how to secure a scene, call for additional resources, open up vehicles with a wide range of tools, use them safely around patients, provide lifesaving interventions to patients, and securely move these patients out of the vehicle before transporting to the hospital. Working as a unified team takes practice, dedication, hours of planning, and many discussions behind the scenes. This was the goal of a recent combined training on the evening of November 6.
Thank you to all these community heroes who daily put their lives on the line! Thank you to all the businesses who allow their employees to go at a moment’s notice! Thank you to our city and organizational leaders for being willing to invest in the necessary equipment. And thank you as citizens for supporting these groups through your financial support — and also pulling over when you see flashing lights and hear the sirens! It truly takes a community to save a life!
A special thanks to the four brave accident “patients” — Marty Guthmiller (CEO of Orange City Area Health System), Ross Bouma (Chair of Northwestern Kinesiology Department), Dr. Tyler Faber (Physician at Orange City Area Health System and EMS Medical Director of Alton and Orang City Ambulances), and Jett Skrien (Illusionist/Interactive Comedy Magician and current Physician Assistant student at Northwestern College).
Additional thanks to … Fire Captain Lee Roghair and Paramedic RN Madie Roghair for all the planning; Elite Auto Body (Brian and Austin DeKock) for the vehicles and car setup; Emma Franken and Denny Vander Wel, photographers; Bryant DeHoogh and Nate Huizenga, drone operators; and each member unmentioned who took the time to come out for this important training.
Finally, a huge shout out and thank you to Denny Vander Wel who after 20 plus years announced his retirement as Orange City Fire Chief. His countless hours of work behind the scenes, and his dedication and support in so many ways, has helped build these teams into what they are today!
